October 1, 2012 2:52pm EDTSeptember 30, 2012 7:44pm EDTA punishing defense, power running game and QB with maximum efficiency keyed San Francisco's Sunday victory. The 49ers pummel the Jets, 34-0, with the kind of effort Rex Ryan wishes his team could produce.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — If Schadenfreude had a color, it would be visible in the swaths of crimson red that cloaked MetLife Stadium as fans of the New York Jets scurried out, more disgusted and mortified than they’ve been in decades.

If Schadenfreude made a sound, it would be the gleeful catcalls that rang out when Colin Kaepernick, the backup quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, slid at the end zone’s edge rather than score another touchdown and pile even more embarrassment atop the home team.

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So we know the 49ers have a classy bent, as well as all those other attributes that help define a Super Bowl team.

As Rex Ryan’s veins bulged and his hands shook, did he ever sneak a look across the field at the man who coolly and calmly has turned around a franchise that not so long ago made the rest of the league snicker? In barely a year, Jim Harbaugh has built the 49ers into the image Ryan craves, one that now seems terribly out of reach.

It wasn’t enough that Ryan was outcoached or that his Jets were brutally outplayed Sunday in falling to the 49ers, 34-0. The Jets were even out-Tebowed (a word that needs no clarifying), Harbaugh proving he too can be clever with the wildcat. Some of the Jets took this as a slight, but they really shouldn’t fret about it considering there’s so much more to mock.

Harbaugh has assembled a club that features a powerful running game, a greedy defense, a quarterback who never buckled even while forced to learn five different offenses in as many years, special teams that realize punts should have some hang time and players who in general are as tough as the nails their coach seems to chomp upon.

In lesser words, this is the team Ryan once thought he had, until its true colors were exposed.

There might be games with larger point differentials this season, but it’s doubtful any of the losing teams will feature skid marks on their backs quite like this.

So livid was Ryan over this whipping, this all-around beatdown, he lurched to the podium for a post-game requiem and apologized for the language he was about to unleash.

“Here’s the recipe for getting your butt kicked,” he then said, and if deadlines didn’t loom he could have ranted well into the night.

To start, the Jets had 45 yards on the ground to Niners’ 245. “I’ve never given up so many rushing yards in my life,” Ryan fumed. The number wouldn’t have been so egregious if the Jets knew how to tackle. The 49ers had zero turnovers to the Jets’ four — three fumbles, one interception. The Jets also had one punt blocked, proving they weren’t without luck considering so many punts were more like line-drive gifts.

Without many options to begin with — hamstring injuries sidelined two of the prime targets — quarterback Mark Sanchez continued his infuriating habit of under-throwing passes, or heaving them into double coverage, and the offensive line that kept caving like a soufflé didn’t do him any favors.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, as the stadium morphed into Candlestick, disaster joined devastation for the Jets when Santonio Holmes caught a pass and then hit the deck. He coughed up the ball, cornerback Carlos Rogers swooped it up and rumbled 51 yards to the end zone for a 24-0 Niners lead.

Holmes had to be carted off, his foot injured in a freakish play that was not unlike the one that sidelined Darrelle Revis last week. Both went down untouched, victims of the sport’s cruel whims. Despite tearing his ACL, Revis and the Jets have clung to hope that he’ll be back for the Super Bowl in February, more reason for outsiders to rejoice in the Jets’ misfortune, for Schadenfreude to gloat.

“I know right now, we’re not even close to being one of the better teams in this league, not even close,” admitted Ryan, who not so long ago bragged that this was one of the most talented clubs he’d ever coached, one with a defense formed in his image, with a pounding running game that could make the ground shake.

Of what he might fix before the 4-0 Houston Texans ride into town Monday night, Ryan said: “There must be something to it. We’re going to find out.”

But how do you teach tackling at this juncture? Or blocking? Jets’ fans who remained screamed loudly for Tim Tebow to take over for Sanchez, or for Tebow to slot in at receiver considering none were left after Holmes went down, but it’s clear the Jets don’t know what to do with him. Tebow threw one pass, a 9-yarder to Dedrick Epps who caught it then fumbled, naturally. Ryan insisted Sanchez is still the answer, and most of the Eastern seaboard groaned.

Whereas Ryan looked ready to peel some eyeballs out, Harbaugh was supernaturally serene. What had become of the raging maniac from last Sunday who could barely see straight after the 49ers sleepwalked through a loss to the Vikings in Minnesota?

Rather than return home, Harbaugh and his team checked into a Holiday Inn in eastern Ohio, the ideal place to circle the wagons. If this season spins like it did last year, when the Niners remained on the road after an ugly win at Cincinnati, spent a week in Youngstown and had a stranglehold of the NFC West by Thanksgiving, well, there will be a lot of corny talk about leaving the lights on.

“Job well done by a lot of guys,” Harbaugh said. “I think it behooves the team when you can give guys a role.”

Nine different Niners ran the ball, with Kaepernick, Kendall Hunter and Frank Gore each rushing for more than 50 yards. The 49ers defense had three sacks, two forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries and held Sanchez to a 39.9 quarterback rating. Compare that to Alex Smith, who completed 12 of 21 passes for 143 yards with no turnovers — a quiet day considering Harbaugh was in his most evil creative genius zone.

Among the plays that caused Ryan’s defense to trip over their own toes was Kaepernick taking a direct snap for 17 yards on a zone-read fake early in the first quarter, and doing it again in the second, this time running untouched off left end for a 7-yard touchdown.

Presumably, the Jets' defense had witnessed such daring formations before, possibly even in practice. The wildcat isn’t foreign to Ryan’s team, though you wouldn’t know it by the stunning flat-footed reaction of his defense.

Over on the sidelines, as his backup quarterback agilely danced in for his first career score, Harbaugh crunched on the inside of his gums. It must have killed him not to cackle. It must have killed Ryan just to watch.